Arizona's attorney general's office is asking the state Court of Appeals to toss out an appeal from Jim Lamon, the Republican former U.S. Senate candidate who wants a court to formally declare that his prosecution in the fake electors case violated Arizona's anti-SLAPP law — and potentially award him and his co-defendants attorney fees. State prosecutors say Lamon missed his deadline to appeal and is now trying to use the wrong legal tool to get a second chance.
The case traces back to an alternate slate of Arizona electoral votes submitted after Donald Trump's 2020 loss to Joe Biden in the state, a scheme that led to charges against 11 Arizona Republicans and seven associates of the former president, according to the Arizona Daily Star. Attorney General Kris Mayes later dismissed the forgery and conspiracy charges against all defendants, though a trial judge had already ruled that prosecutors failed to give the grand jury that indicted them all the relevant information. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers's ruling, as reported by Arizona Capitol Times, cleared the way for the state to seek a second indictment later, and Mayes has reserved the right to refile.
Lamon's Long Road Back Into the Case
Lamon's own path through the case has been unusual. His charges were dismissed without prejudice in January 2025 after he agreed to hand over emails for the state's case against the remaining defendants, according to KJZZ. He later filed motions to rejoin the case and obtain a ruling on his anti-SLAPP motion, arguing that the trial court had an obligation to rule on and grant that claim before letting him go.
Myers ultimately found Lamon's anti-SLAPP issue moot once Mayes dismissed charges against every defendant, concluding he had no legal basis to rule on matters no longer pending before his court. Lamon disagrees, and he was the first defendant to take that fight to the Court of Appeals — leading, per the same KJZZ report, a pack of defendants preparing to make or join the anti-SLAPP argument.
What the Anti-SLAPP Fight Is Really About
Arizona's anti-SLAPP law is meant to push for dismissal of politically motivated prosecutions, and it is unusual nationally: the state is the only one whose anti-SLAPP statute covers criminal charges at all, a feature Arizona Capitol Times notes was added when the Republican-controlled Legislature expanded the law in 2022, ahead of Mayes's election, to require dismissal of criminal charges — described as a first in the nation. In February 2025, Myers found that Lamon and his co-defendants had initially shown the prosecution was substantially motivated by an effort to target their exercise of a constitutional right, and that Mayes's comments indicated an effort to prevent them from exercising that right again in the future. Under the statute, that initial showing shifts the burden to the state to prove it was not, in fact, trying to deter the defendants' constitutional rights.
The attorney general's office never took that step, instead appealing the anti-SLAPP ruling itself — and the Court of Appeals declined to consider the state's case before Myers dismissed the original indictment outright. Lamon now argues that the state's failure to respond to that initial ruling should entitle defendants to attorney fees, since the anti-SLAPP statute allows a judge to award fees only if the court grants the motion.
The State's Pushback: Too Late, Wrong Tool
Assistant Attorney General Casey Ball contends Lamon simply missed his window. Ball said Lamon failed to file a timely notice of appeal and cannot now revive an abandoned direct appeal through a special action, arguing the anti-SLAPP statute does not require a trial court to rule on a motion after dismissal or to award fees once no case remains pending. Per Ball, his office had no deadline to respond because there was no live case at the time, though he acknowledged his office could challenge Myers's underlying finding if the case is refiled.
Lamon had obtained his dismissal roughly six months before Ball made that argument. State prosecutors contend more broadly that the court had no duty to rule on a motion when no case was pending — the same theory now underpinning their push to quash his appeal.
Four More Defendants Join the Fight
Lamon isn't alone for long. Four other defendants whose cases were dismissed on a different date than his — John Eastman, a former Trump attorney; Christina Bobb, also a former Trump attorney; Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff; and Tyler Bowyer, chief operating officer of Turning Point Action — have filed their own notices of appeal seeking a final ruling on whether the attorney general's office violated the anti-SLAPP law. Jake Hoffman, Boris Epshteyn and Nancy Cottle have also joined notices of appeal, according to Arizona Capitol Times.
Those four defendants have asked the court to consolidate Lamon's special action with their pending appeals. Ashley Adams, an attorney for Eastman, said they hoped a single panel would hear everything to avoid conflicting Court of Appeals rulings. The attorney general's office has said it would not oppose consolidating the Eastman, Bobb, Meadows and Bowyer cases, but it is opposing any move to fold Lamon's special action into that same request. The Court of Appeals has not yet ruled on consolidation or set a new briefing schedule for those four defendants, and the state's response to Lamon's filing was due October 16.
A Pattern Beyond Arizona
Arizona's case is just one piece of a broader national reckoning over the 2020 fake electors schemes. In Georgia, prosecutors dropped their fake electors case last year, according to Votebeat, while Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced in March that she would not appeal a ruling dismissing her state's case. Wisconsin's case, by contrast, is still moving forward. Votebeat has reported that Arizona's litigation, following the state Supreme Court's declination to review lower-court rulings, is likely to stretch into 2027 or 2028.
